I just discovered that the professor who created the very first MOOC is a Mennonite. It was 2008 and George Siemens was a researcher at University of Winnipeg. He has more recently described his theory of learning as springing from those Mennonite roots. Seeing learning as going beyond mere content to being in community. You [...]
Category: Integrative learning
Update on OPM industry
Sounds like an illegal drug-related market doesn't it? Actually, it is the Online Program Industry and in the moments after I hit publish on the preceding post, I saw a tweet about 2U, the putative pioneer of the industry. I got cranky as I tend to do when I see yet more dialog about this [...]
More on humanitarian tech
A while back I shared the abstract from my recent submission to IEEE's Global Humanitarian Tech Conference. You can see the original post here. I learned this week that it has been accepted. Hoping that this year's conference really will be in person. For more information on timing (September 8-11), place (Santa Clara University), and [...]
The soul of innovation
This thought that tech architecture might be rooted in something other than way cool technology or wealth creation rolls around in my mind all the time. It informed the due diligence methodology I recently proposed for IEEE's Global Humanitarian Technology Conference. It also relates to my memoir project covering my experience and insights as a [...]
Coming to our senses
Or how I taught ethical decision-making to road crew . . . . It's the middle of the great pandemic of 2020 and I am having a terrible time falling asleep. Not all that surprising given I live in New York City and we are being hit hard. I have tried all the standards, meditation, [...]
What small business lenders want . . .
I originally wrote this post back in 2013 and update it periodically. The importance of knowing what your prospective lenders look for in a creditworthy small business never seems to fade. With growing global concerns that a frightening virus in China could cause economic damage affecting small businesses, it is time for a reminder: We've [...]
Talking About Numbers
We have used a tagline from time to time. Strength in numbers. I am reminded of that when I think about participants in our pilots who have reported the ways they want to use Descant. You can take a tour of the application for pilots here. The most common feedback is exactly what we expected. [...]
Neat (small) business story
I'm always looking for a heartwarming small business story. This recent news about the super-big acquisition of Lynda.com, caught my eye because I started my tech career in online learning. But it also features entrepreneurs who didn't start out with the goal of a getting rich. I love how the confluence of personal passion and [...]
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